My Favorite Linux Distros – UX, Server, and Enterprise

October 26th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Debian | Linux | Linux Mint Debian | Red Hat Enterprise Linux - (2 Comments)

So i’ve been messing with Linux Mint Debian, and I have to say, I think I have finally found a better UX Linux distro over Ubuntu.

I’ve been a huge fan of Debian for nearly 10+ years. Debian is FANTASTIC at all server related tasks. However, in the past, it was always a hassle getting simple things working (wifi, video card drivers) when Ubuntu did it with ease on my laptops. This is why I really liked Ubuntu (since 6.06.2), and it’s UX design and portability for laptops and workstations. But after 10.04, they have made way too many changes that have really irked me. Albeit, it’s rather annoying that KDE and GNOME 3 were complete and epic failures, which really didn’t give Canonical a choice other than running GNOME 2, creating a custom variant/branch, or creating the “Crap Fest” that is called “Unity”.

Since loving Debian, I’ve always preferred distros that were native, or at least used dpkg/apt in a sense. Enter Linux Mint Debian. It’s pretty much the unstable branch of Debian (which I normally run, because if you have ever done PCI compliance on a Debian box, you really have no choice but to run unstable sources). In addition to this, it’s straight up Debian, with MATE/Cinnamon as it’s window manager. MATE/Cinnamon is fantastic. It’s better than XFCE, but simplistic, and gives that original feel of GNOME 2 (since it’s a branch of this) with the added UX that Ubuntu provided solidly in 10.04.

Anyways, enough rambling. Here’s my list of Linux Distros for UX, Server, and Enterprise:

UX:

 LMDE    Linux Mint Debian
  • Debian unstable, MATE/Cinnamon – that’s all I ever really wanted in a laptop/workstation distro!

Server:

 Debian    Debian
  • Best solid Linux distro EVER. LAMP, MySQL/Postgres, Mail servers, Bonded NICs/iSCSI, Backups, NFS servers, you name it. Debian will make it happen, quickly and efficiently.
  • P.S. I linked the netinst image, because if you download the DVD set, you’re a fucking moron! =)

Enterprise:

 RHEL    Red Hat Enterprise Linux
  • Mainly for those of you running Oracle… it’s not horrible, but some of the management scripts make me want to barf. It’s sometimes easier to configure stuff manually! On another note, not many options… I mean, would you really prefer to run SuSE? =)

NetApp OnCommand System Manager 2.0.2 for Debian/Ubuntu

October 4th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Debian | Debian Packages | Linux | NetApp | Ubuntu - (3 Comments)

Hey All,

Here’s a deb I created that has NetApp OnCommand System Manager 2.0.2. You can download it here.

To install it, do the following:


sudo dpkg -i netapp-oncommand-sysmgr_2.0-1_all.deb

Once that’s complete, do the following to copy the launcher file to your desktop for easy access…


cd /opt/NetApp/oncommand_system_manager/2.0
cp system_manager.desktop ~/Desktop
cd ~/Desktop
chmod +x system_manager.desktop

For those running Ubuntu, here’s how to add the desktop file to the Unity Menu:


desktop-file-install system_manager.desktop

 

VMware vSphere 5.1 is out!

September 11th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Tons of great new features… but the best one is:

Improved vMotion – Easily migrate VMs between hosts without the need of shared storage.

Click here for more info!

Epic Uptime!

August 17th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in HP-UX | Linux | Solaris - (0 Comments)

LOL… One of my clients has a box running solaris with this epic uptime…


2:48pm up 1187 day(s), 3:34, 4 users, load average: 0.09, 0.12, 0.12

HAHA! And I need to reboot it next week :(

Woo, it’s been awhile!

July 29th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Sorry for the lack of posts… been super busy lately. Finally made some minor design changes! This was mainly because people were commenting on the wrong post when it was up top… DOH! Anyways, I’ll post some interesting topics within the next few days… stay tuned!

Duke Nukem 3D – Spritian vs Stebo

May 18th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Duke Nukem 3D | PC Games - (2 Comments)

Here’s an awesome video I found of me playing my good friend Stebo in Duke3D… It looks like I’m gonna lose, but I swing it back to victory towards the end to win 10-5! Good times =) Thanks UMK3spaulding for posting the video!

Fix resolvconf on Ubuntu 12.04

May 18th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Linux | Ubuntu - (0 Comments)

So it seems Ubuntu 12.04 uses a local DNS server for all connections, regardless what you specify in Network Manager.

The easiest way to fix this is edit the following file:


sudo vi /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Remove the dnsmasq line, save, and reboot! Your settings will now be fetched from DHCP or taken manually from Network Manager again!

Install Dropbox as a service on Linux

May 13th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Linux | Ubuntu - (2 Comments)

This article will guide you on how to install Dropbox as a service on Linux. First things first, let’s get Dropbox downloaded and installed on our server. To start, paste the following in your terminal…

For 32-bit:


cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86" | tar xzf -

For 64-bit:


cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -

After that’s complete, run the dropboxd command:


~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

Next, You’ll see something like this…


This client is not linked to any account...
Please visit https://www.dropbox.com/cli_link?host_id=hostid to link this machine.

Click that link, login with your credentials to link your new dropboxd service to your account. Shortly after, the message above should stop spamming and say that it is now linked! Hit CTRL+C to quit.

The last thing we need to do is enable a init.d script to boot at runtime.

First, determine your current runlevel:


runlevel
N 2

So our current runlevel is 2. Let’s add it correctly though by adding a new “dropboxd” file in /etc/init.d. The only thing you need to modify in the script below is the DROPBOX_USERS variable.


#!/bin/sh
DROPBOX_USERS="myusername"
DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropbox

start() {
echo "Starting dropbox..."
for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
HOME="$HOMEDIR" start-stop-daemon -b -o -c $dbuser -S -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
fi
done
}

stop() {
echo "Stopping dropbox..."
for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
start-stop-daemon -o -c $dbuser -K -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
fi
done
}

status() {
for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
dbpid=`pgrep -u $dbuser dropbox`
if [ -z $dbpid ] ; then
echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: not running."
else
echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: running (pid $dbpid)"
fi
done
}

case "$1" in

start)
start
;;

stop)
stop
;;

restart|reload|force-reload)
stop
start
;;

status)
status
;;

*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/dropbox {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart|status}"
exit 1

esac

exit 0

Now that the script resides in init.d, let’s change folders to /etc/rc2.d (our runlevel) and make a symlink from ../init.d/dropboxd to the present working dir.


cd /etc/rc2.d
ln -s ../init.d/dropboxd S99dropboxd

That’s it! You can call it with the service command, or just execute it from /etc/init.d or /etc/rc2.d.

Ubuntu 12.04 freezing with dual monitors fix

May 4th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in Linux | Ubuntu - (5 Comments)

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 but found myself super frustrated to see my laptop lockup immediately after logging in via the GUI. It turned out to be an issue with the intel driver and dual monitors…

There was reported success by downgrading xserver-xorg-input-evdev, with the version you can find here:
https://launchpad.net/~sarvatt/+archive/sru1/+build/3118994

It works! I now have dual monitors again! :)

The original bug report can also be found here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/992778

Useful HP-UX commands for Linux Administrators

April 26th, 2012 | Posted by spritian in HP-UX | Linux - (0 Comments)

Few commands I use often in HP-UX; Coming from over 15 years of Linux experience, the quirks in HP-UX can get annoying at first, but hopefully this will help you through it!

Sick of your backspace key not working? Here’s your answer:


stty erase ^?

Annoyed with the shitty output of df?


bdf

Trying to figure out what the model/arch of the server is?


model

This lists a few different thing… disk related, and/or fibre channel cards:


ioscan -fnNkC disk
ioscan -fnkC disk
ioscan -fnkC
ioscan -m lun
ioscan -m dsf

How do I configure which mirror to boot from!?


setboot -v (verify/list)
setboot -a (alt)
setboot -p (primary)

I miss yum/apt-get:


swinstall -s /full/path/to/depotfile.depot \*
swinstall -x autoreboot=true -s /full/path/to/depotfile.depot \*

The \* is pretty cool, it prevents the TUI/GUI from loading, but continues the install/dep check. Makes it feel more like yum or apt-get, instead of aptitude or a GUI update manager.

AHHH usermod and passwd are missing flags in HP-UX! No, just use modprpw instead!


/usr/lbin/modprpw -v (refresh/validate all accounts)
/usr/lbin/modprpw -k -l username (unlock/enable [k] a local account [l])

This will reset the expiration of a locked account.

Where the fuck are the init.d and rc scripts?!


/sbin
/sbin/init.d/

How can I figure out the current runlevel?!


who -r

I miss bash, how can I auto-complete a command?!


Like bash, type a few letters of the prefix, but instead of tab, hit:
esc twice

WTF?! No history command?!?! Lies, hit esc+k – then use j/k to cycle forward/backwards respectively. To edit a line you scroll to, it’s interactive vi in ksh… so ‘l’ to move foward, shift+R to replace, etc…